Motivation
by Iluvbeyblade
Summary: A series of drabbles to reboot my writing brain. Eleventh chapter is Mariah/Mathilda, to a prompt of Biting. Future ships or characters as suggested!
1. First Kiss

First thing I've written in months? Was always going to be these two :P

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The first time that Ray realised he wanted to kiss Kai wasn't big and dramatic. It was late one night during the year with the Saint Shields and Zeo. Max, Hilary and Kenny had gone home for once. Tyson hadn't been feeling great, and had retreated to his room with a blanket or ten. So Ray and Kai sat outside, half in their sleeping bags and half out. The ensuing silence had been comfortable and familiar: they were usually the last ones awake.

Unexpectedly, Kai'd picked up the thread of a conversation they'd started over a week ago about the differences between Chinese and Japanese star mythology. So they'd chatted about that for a while, staring at the stars and pointing if necessary. Then Ray looked over at Kai. Not even for the first time this evening. Just … looked over at him, at his half shadowed, half starlit profile, and something swooped in his stomach. Half arousal, half shock. He couldn't take his eyes off Kai's lips. Too soon, Kai noticed him looking and raised his eyebrows. Ray looked back at the stars, far too quickly, and stared up at them until his face cooled.

"All right?"

"Yeah. Fine."

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So I'm back and I'm doing a series of drabbles to challenge myself to fucking write something, ffs woman. Would people like a series of Kai/Ray drabbles, yes/no? Feel free to let me know any other pairings you'd fancy seeing.

All opinions welcome

xIlbx


	2. Final

Thank you ever so much to **Lamanth**, **artemis-nz** and **Sora** for your reviews! I'll reply to you all tomorrow when I'm less sleepy.

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"Well then," Ray said, then stared at the floor. Kai wasn't even looking at him anyway, he was standing in the doorway, eyes shut, arms folded. Like he wanted to be anywhere else right now.

Ray knew the feeling. Except, no. He wanted to be any_when_ else. Back to a month ago, before they'd had that last fracturing conversation. Hell, five years after it, because the pain had to fade by then, right?

"It was your choice!" Mariah had yelled at him, after he'd yelled at her. Words had stuck in his throat and he'd roared like Lee, like a lion, and taken a swing at the wall.

It _wasn't_ his choice. He loved them _both_, but although Kai had grown out of his disdain and Mariah had grown out of her hatred, there was far too many years of ill feeling between for it to ever have worked long-term.

At least he'd never lied to them. That counted for something, right?

He sighed. No, he'd never lied. From the moment he fell in love with Kai, Mariah had known. When he'd asked Kai out, he'd told him about Mariah. And neither of them had been happy about it but they'd agreed to give it a shot because they wanted him to be happy. They'd tried to hide their jealousy and resentment, and he'd sensed it and tried to love them both even more, as if that would fix the relationship. Relationship_s_.

He had dragged them to their breaking points and somehow it didn't matter that they'd crawled along willingly.

What mattered was the fight with Mariah, where everything she screamed sounded like "Don't leave me!"

What mattered was the fight with Kai and his resolute silence, which sounded like, "You've fucked up and I'm waiting for you to realise."

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I ship both Kai/Ray and Ray/Mariah and I 100% think poly Ray, but could those two manage it, really?

These won't all be Kai/Ray (promise!), but that ship will probably feature heavily :P

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	3. Numb

A massive thank you to everyone who reviewed! I've replied to everyone who was signed in, apart from Tootchy who has PMs disabled! tsk!

As usual, the line divider thing is playing up sorry guys!

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Hilary had been shocked and upset when Max and Ray left - with a little bit of anger mixed in for Ray because he'd done it so ruthlessly.

Then Kai had gone too.

She'd had one moment of shock. One lifetime of a moment, reeling while her guts hollowed out and tears burnt her eyes. But she couldn't let it show, because Kenny was in bits and Tyson … Tyson looked fit to kill. Kai. Hiro. Whoever.

She had a job to do. There were still some of her boys left, and they needed her to be the strong one right now. So she let the first of it out by tussling with Daichi, who really didn't have a clue what was going on. She dealt with the rest of it just like she'd dealt with her grandmother's death three years ago: she wrestled with the fear and the sadness and the rage and she locked it all away.

She let it out later, in dribs and drabs. Damp pillows at night. Biting her hand in the bathroom and swallowing down jagged sobs. Only doing that in private, because her boys were doing it in public and they needed her.

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It really means a lot to me that people are reading and enjoying even these tiny scraps, so thank you all again.

All opinions welcome,

xIlbx


	4. Chocolate

Hi everyone! Thank you very much to Sora and NorthernShinigami for their reviews of the previous drabble!

Here's some more Kai/Ray, inspired by my fellow Beyblade writer zadien's headcanon that Kai eats chocolate when he forgets to eat, and he forgets a lot.

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Ray got out of the taxi and paid his fare. He had packed very lightly, but he was so tired that even his backpack and small holdall seemed heavy. He'd spent just over ten hours on a plane, then two hours on a bus, then he'd intended to walk the last three miles but had given up and rung for a taxi instead.

He really hoped that Kai would have food in.

No sooner had he shut the front door behind him than he stood on an empty chocolate bar wrapper. His empty stomach wriggled sadly: this did not bode well. He took a few more steps forwards and gladly dumped his bags.

"Hey!" he called. Silence. He filled his lungs to call again, more loudly, but before he could -

"Hey!" The kitchen light flicked on. Ray followed it like a lighthouse's beacon.

He was greeted by the sight of Kai, surrounded by chocolate bar wrappers and mugs of coffee in varying states, scowling at his laptop.

Ray's stomach whimpered. To drown it out he asked, "Is it due tomorrow?"

"Mmhmm." Kai rocked back on his chair and glared at the screen. Or tried to. His eyes weren't quite focussing properly.

"You knew I was coming up." Ugh, Ray hated that sulky tone. He wanted to be angry, in fact, because Kai _had_ known he was coming up and Kai _had_ promised to get on top of his studies after the last debacle, and Ray was exhausted and starving. It was difficult to get properly angry at Kai, though, given that he looked even more tired and hungry than Ray.

Kai blinked a few times, as of Ray's words had just filtered through. "Yeah." He rubbed his eyes, hard. "Sorry." He stood up and made a move towards the cupboards. Ray wasn't sure what he was doing but was absolutely certain that he would drop whatever it was, so he dodged a chair and grabbed Kai's wrist.

And oh wow, this was bad, because Kai turned into Ray's arms like a lamb and nuzzled his neck in a way he usually only did while very drunk. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"That's ok," Ray said, because what else could he say right then?

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	5. Melody

Thank you to **zadien** for reviewing the last chapter! :D

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People liked to pretend that certain sounds were musical. It ended up all over the sports pages - the "music" of whooping crowds, the "song" of beyblades whirring and smashing against each other. The "melody" of a world returned to normal.

But the only music that Mathilda remembered was the way that her heart had raced and her face reddened when Julia had grabbed her around the neck, her other arm around Raul, and jumped for joy over Tyson's performance. She had frozen, listening to the blood pound in her ears and wondering if Julia's firm grip meant something.

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I am actually referring to a real moment here! If you go on youtube and find the last episode, skip to the end when Tyson and Brooklyn are just fighting normally, after Hiro's lectured Boris, and they flash past people in the crowd and one of them is this little tableau with Julia deadlocking her brother and Mathilda, the latter of whom is blushing and wide-eyed.

I ship these two very, very hard.


	6. Broken Wing

Thank you very much to Sora (your reviews are so lovely, I wish I could reply to you!), NorthernShinigami, and Lamanth for your reviews. I'll reply to reviews tomorrow, because as usual this is being written and posted at stupid o'clock by my standards.

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Kai's _bloody_ cat!

"Have you eaten it?" he asked the cat, which was winding round his legs and purring as if doing so would help the situation. "Why did you do this to me?" The cat stared up at him and dropped the bird's wing at his feet. Ray sighed and sat back down. It would turn up. They'd smell it.

When Kai came home, his response to the bird situation was also to shrug and say "it'll turn up". Ray had at least looked for it first. He mentioned this, and the situation rapidly spiralled into one of those nasty arguments where every grievance within memory was brought out to air.

That had been happening a lot lately. Call it the three year itch.

A few weeks later, they found the bird. Or rather, they went into the living room one morning and the walls were black with flies.

Oddly enough, this didn't trigger another argument. Their simultaneous horror turned to pragmatism and, when everything was throughly doused in fly-killer bought from the closest shop, black humour. They laughed and laughed for the first time in weeks, and happily cuddled together that night.

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This basic situation did happen to me and my mum - I was the one who lost the bird when the cat brought it in, and then later when I was safely back at uni Mum had to deal with HORROR FILM flies. jfc. I also discovered when living with fellow students how much coming together to deal with things (we had mice, we had slugs, we had suspected bitey things ...) like this can help remove tension.

fFUCK A MASSIVE SPIDER JUST RAN ACROSS THE FLOOR FUCK

im gone

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	7. Nostalgia

Thank you to Sora and NorthernShinigami for your reviews!

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Bryan missed life at the Abbey. Wasn't that fucked up?

The routine and the structure – the hierarchy had been brutal, yes, but he'd always known his (high-ranking) place. And if the price had been glittering-eyed whitecoats messing with his head, then well, he hadn't minded that too much. He'd already been a ball of anger and hate when they'd started. Staying there was easy.

Coming out of it, untangling emotions from that ball of hate, was hard. How did you laugh? When? Getting things wrong made him rage again – except that was wrong now too. Everything he did was wrong.

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Sorry about the delay - I am a lazy pile of poo and also had my first ever week of work last week which figuratively killed me. I'll post more regularly, promise XD

Thank you for reading!

All opinions welcome

xIlbx


	8. Altered State

Hi guys, I'm back, wow. I've got a few yuri drabbles which were part of my failed Camp Nano this year. I couldn't write them on Word so they probably won't be exactly 100.

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There were a lot of things that Mariah found were interesting to do while drunk.

Beyblading was one of them. Her connection with Galux was both more intense and less predictable.

Climbing trees was probably too dangerous, but it was exciting. Gripping extra tight, not knowing if the branch was blowing in the wind or whether that was just the alcohol.

Arguing with Lee became even funnier than usual. He would try to stay calm and reasonable, but he would always fail.

Kissing people. That was the best. Kissing boys, kissing girls, kissing people who weren't either. But especially girls.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	9. Anonymity

I got rejected for a job today and I am sad.

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Thanks to Hilary's tireless efforts, Salima had actually done a bit of socialising with "the BeyGirls", as the press had dubbed them. Mathilda was sweet and pretty, and Mariah was so sexy that Salima forgave her occasional nastiness, but libido aside, she wouldn't do it again.

She was just so different from them.

They'd all competed at world-class level - Mariah had been in_ two_ world championships! - whereas she'd bladed casually, just for fun with her friends (until they all got involved with those evil scientsts, and she tried not to think too hard about that. The way she'd acted still sickened her). The other girls got hounded by the media; they got outfit-checked and body-shamed and paired with every guy they spoke to who wasn't a relative. No, she was very happy with her anonymity.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	10. Authority

Hey guys, I am sad at the lack of reviews :P Don't you love yuri?

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Whenever Julia and Mariah were in the same room together, sparks would fly. They'd ended up being very good friends, but clashes were inevitable since they both wanted to have complete authority 100% of the time. Julia mocked Mariah for being pretty submissive to Ray and in return Mariah said nasty things about Raul's lack of "masculinity". Mathilda tended to leave the room at this point, or at least hide behind the sofa. She was hiding one afternoon when she saw the usual fight spin on its head: anger to coyness; aggression to flirtation; from grabbing to touching to kissing.

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All opinions welcome

xIlbx


	11. Biting

YAY REVIEWS! Thank you to adbhut and riana rox! :D

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"Had fun last night?" Ray said with a smirk. Mathilda was already wishing she could disappear, but when Ray gestured casually to a hickey (which Mathilda was sure she'd hidden with makeup before she left the house!), she started wanting to melt into the floor forever.

"Not like that!" she spluttered, certain that she wouldn't be believed and that more mocking would come. Ray just grinned fondly and said, "Yeah, I know."

When Emily saw it after lunch, she rolled her eyes. "I think something went very wrong with Mariah's childhood teething experience."

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I'll try to get some more up over the weekend. Possibly Kai/Ray, or Kai/Max.

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


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